Is there a way to control Emission values using an empty's movement?
To animate emission with an empty movement you can use driver. To create it, click with right mouse button on numeric field of Strength property of the shader, choose Add Driver>Manually Create Later (Single). Then open Graph Editor, change mode from F-Curve to Drivers, click on one of frames on the curve you'll see, go to properties panel on the right (press N if closed), go to Driver, choose Scripted Expression as Type, in Expr window type var,for Object choose Empty, and for Type and Space choose X Location (or Y or Z, doesn't matter), World Space and done. Check gif below to see the process.